Binge Eating and Mindfulness

I’m sure you’ve heard of mindfulness and of course meditation. But what could it possibly have to do with binge eating you ask? Have you ever been told, about anything, “it’s all in your mind?”

Well science is beginning to prove the power of that statement.At first you say: “I can think my way out of this! I can control my mind and my actions in other things, so I must be able to will myself/think myself out of this crazy binge eating….”Most folks that begin to examine their binge eating behavior start with: “Oh, I can stop this at anytime – it’s no big deal.”Then it moves to: “Why can’t I seem to stop once I start?”Then to: “This is crazy – once I start – I really can’t stop, I can’t control my own actions even though I want to!”The progression, for some, is quick. It happens so fast, we’re at “this is crazy” really fast. Others take time to get there but some of us get there eventually.Then worry and panic set in and we finally seek some help.

Why is it that we can’t seem to “control” our mind and our actions around this one behaviour when in most of the rest of our lives we are normal functioning adults?

We’ve talked about flour and sugar hijacking your brain and understanding that is a huge part of our recovery. Our site is full of articles about that.

But what about our mind?

Is it betraying us in this one thing?

Mindfulness is a huge buzzword these days. It gets bantered about for everything from mindful business to mindful relationships and everything in between.

The truth is its popularity is soaring because, if practiced regularly and earnestly, mindfulness and meditation work to literally rewire our brains in such a way that we seem to have more control over our actions, have more peace of mind and generally have a sense of serenity that we didn’t have before we started.

Binge Eating and Mindfulness

The science behind it is accumulating very rapidly too. From Harvard to Carnegie Mellon, studies are proving the effectiveness of mindfulness and meditation on just about all facets of our lives.

Did you know that entire 30 day, high dollar, food recovery treatment centers are now running their entire programs around the concepts of mindfulness and mindfulness training? It’s true. A lot of treatment centers are moving to “evidenced based” programs and mindfulness and meditation have figured prominently in their studies.

Mindfulness is about being able to ask: “what is this really about?” when we start or contemplate a binge – or our car, on it’s own, ends up at the 7-11. It’s never about the food or the sweets.

To be able to calmly, kindly and without self judgement ask “what is this really about?” and “how can I act in a way to self nurture instead of self destruct?” – that is the essence of a mindfulness practice as it relates to binge eating.

Mindfulness takes some effort. But I can say from personal experience that it works and it’s worth it. The benefits both, seen and unseen, are far more than recovering from emotional, addictive or binge eating.

My personal mindfulness meditation coach has been invaluable in guiding me to a consistent daily practice that has changed so much in my life. She has recorded a guided meditation called “Nurture Positive Emotion”. We’d like to give you this as our gift as an introduction to mindfulness meditation. It’s completely free as our gift.